April 2018: A MAGICal April Vacation: Day 6, Part 2

Thursday April 26, 2018, part 2

The trolley let us off right by the gate entrance, and we joined the line waiting to be let back on board. The line moved fairly quickly, and pretty soon, we were working our way through security and up to deck 9 for food. We had decided to grab food from the pool deck places for this lunch, so we parted ways and agreed to meet back at the stateroom, since we both wanted different options.

I went over to Daisy DeLights to get a turkey and cranberry sandwich that I’d noticed when touring the ship with Kim the previous day. I think Nick got chicken tenders and a burger, but maybe he just got a couple of burgers. My sandwich was good, and gave me an excuse to eat the bag of chips I hadn’t managed to eat when we were at Earl of Sandwich on our driving day. Have to make room in the carry on!

Lunch consumed, I did a little texting, hung out on the balcony for a bit, and then laid down on the bed to rest.

Resting turned into a legitimate nap, and by some miracle (I think because the engine changed speed from stationary to leaving port) I woke up...15 minutes before our Mixology class. EEK. Nick and I quickly got ready and headed for Keys, reaching the entrance right at 4, me with pillow imprints still on my face. Oops!

Nick hadn’t been super excited about the idea of Mixology when I first suggested it, but agreed to try it, because, hey, alcohol.

Well, as soon as he walked in and he saw a bar laid out with 200 glasses (5 drinks, times 40 people) he asked why we didn’t do this last time haha.

Our bartenders for the class were Damien, Mary Ann, Danielle, and someone else. Damien really was the leader. Damien was super personable and we liked him immediately. He explained that there would be 5 drinks made today, and we could volunteer to help with whatever drinks we wanted to, or not. One of the ladies sitting in our section expressed her excitement over the fact that they were full sized drink glasses waiting for us; apparently one of the mixology classes she had done in the past gave sample sized.

The first drink was one Nick and I passed on volunteering to help with. It required muddling. It was one Damien had dreamed up, a spin off from a mojito. This one was muddled strawberry, agave, lime, and basil (instead of mint), with lemon rum and club soda. He called it the creeper, because it’s really drinkable and sneaks up on you. It was a very refreshing drink.

The next one was easy to make, so Nick and I helped with that. It was a Malibu Bay Breeze. Malibu coconut rum, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice. I’ve had those locally, and they’re always tasty, so it was nice to see it turn up here. 

Next up was what Damien called the Blue Kamikaze. If I’m remembering correctly, he and the bartenders made these for everyone, because they contained so much alcohol. I know there was blue curacao, grand marnier, vodka and lemon lime something in it, but I lost track after there. I’m pretty sure there were 5 different liquors in it. I was not a fan of the flavor of this. I think Nick drank both of them.

Next up was one I didn’t get a picture of (ok, I didn’t get a picture of the last two), but it was much more enjoyable. This one was passion fruit juice, pomegranate juice, and prosecco. Yes please!

And last was a shot. They called it the cinnamon toast crunch shot, and it pretty much tasted like that, except it burned, because the alcohol in it was Fireball whiskey. Unlike my husband, I’m not much for whiskey. I prefer rum, tequila and vodka drinks. The flavor was great, though, and I’m pretty sure Nick plans to make this one at home frequently. It’s equal parts RumChata and Fireball.

And that concluded our mixology class. It was a great time, and an amazing value. 5 full sized drinks for $20. Nick now wants to sign up for any tasting that sounds interesting next year.

Mixology complete, we booked it back to our room to order room service to absorb some of that alcohol. Chicken tenders for Nick, All Hands on Deck (cheese platter) for me. It showed up quickly, with the cutest ketchup topper ever, so we had plenty of time to eat before meeting Kim and John for tonight’s show.

Tonight was the big event: Tangled night!! I think we met Kim and John at the theater again. I’m not entirely sure what they were up to between the time we left them in Key West and the time we met up in the theater. That might have been the day John watched a movie on funnelvision?

The Tangled show was fantastic! That’s really all there is to say about that. We all really enjoyed it.

After the show, it was off to the atrium. Nick and I had some more pictures taken. 

We weren’t really sure where Kim and John had gone, so we headed back to the room for a few minutes. We were surprised to find that it had already been turned down. 

We also were surprised that it was now night 2 and there had been no sign of our stateroom host at all, with the exception of the regularly made up room and bed runner creations. This was the polar opposite of our previous cruise, where we were pretty sure Sentana lived in the hallway. All was good with the room, though, and we knew Kim and John had met and liked their stateroom host so all was good.

Pretty soon it was time for dinner, so we headed for Animator’s Palate. We were quite excited for this night. We only had to keep what happens in this dining room a secret from Kim for a short time longer.

Nikola was a bit confused when Nick and I showed up without Kim and John in tow. I think he might have jokingly asked us if we left them in some bar in Key West. See why we liked him?

Kim and John appeared a minute or two later and we got down to business, studying the menu, and hearing about the Snuggly Duckling sing-along in O’Gills that they’d just been to. Surprising all of us, Miguel appeared, greeting us by name as he took drink orders, and presenting Kim with a glass of ginger ale, the same soda she had ordered the night before in Lumiere’s. And, as an added bonus, tonight he acted like he had heard of a drink of the day before. Progress!

Dinner was good and a ton of fun. And the photographers were out in force tonight. I think most of us had the pasta purseittes for appetizers. I also had the squash soup, and the chicken entree. Miguel did not redeem himself in the water department, but Nikola was a little less crazy busy tonight, and he was very aware of Miguel’s shortcomings in this department. We all enjoyed the show, and we all got a good chuckle out of my plate when I ordered “nothing” for dessert.

A word about the show. On the classic Disney ships, Animator’s Palate starts black and white. Color is added as the meal progresses. Around dessert, there’s a show. If the video doesn’t load right, it’s also on my facebook page. 

As dinner ended, Nick and his dad made plans to meet for the premEAR of Avengers Infinity War at the Buena Vista Theater. The highly advertised showing was taking place in the Walt Disney Theater, but the Navigator we had found when we went back to our room after the show, listed the showing in both theaters.

Nick and I headed over to Shutters to check out our pictures. As we were leaving, the Tangled Thugs were walking through. There seemed to be a character doorway in Shutters. All of a sudden we heard “hey! Magnificent Beard Man!”, and one of the thugs gave Nick a little salute. Nick loved it.

We headed back to the room very briefly. From there, I headed for O’Gills to see what was happening with the Snuggly Duckling takeover now that it was adults only. And Nick headed off to Buena Vista Theater to get in line.

I was greeted by the Thugs at the entrance, teaching those of us entering the password. I think it was clap clap stomp stomp quack quack HUH, but I could have that order wrong. As I was proving I had paid attention, I saw that John had found his way here too.

We parked it at a high top, taking some pictures while we waited for things to start. 

Tonight’s event was a game of THUGO...Thug Bingo. It was fun, the Thugs were entertaining, and they played some good music. John was surprisingly into this. We were only there for about 25 minutes, but it was enjoyable.

Right as THUGO was wrapping up, Nick messaged me that his dad needed to get to the theater because a line was really forming and there was no holding seats. So John headed for the theater, and, when everything wrapped up, I headed back to the room, where I parked myself in bed, half dozing and half watching TV.

Nick got back from the movie about 1:30, kind of blown away. He said it was really really sad. I think he was kind of disappointed by the turn the movie had taken. We both were really asleep shortly after he returned.

April 2018: A MAGICal April Vacation: Day 6, Part 1

Day 6: Thursday April 26, 2018

I was correct in thinking I’d be awake early because of the early docking. I hadn’t predicted, however, what a short night it would really be.

I think I was finally asleep around midnight. Once asleep, I slept well, but it was a short night. The thrusters kicked in just barely after 6 for us to dock in Key West, so at that point, I was awake for the day. Well...that part of the day anyway. I’m glad I went out on the balcony when I did, because it meant I got a brief view of the town, before we spun around to dock.

I spent quite a bit of time on the balcony, while Nick continued conducting the snorechestra. It was a good morning for picture taking, complete with a Royal Caribbean ship passing within what felt like a couple hundred feet of us. PS, my ship has a better butt! I saw some dolphins too, this morning, which was wicked cool, but there’s no photographic evidence of that. 

Pretty soon I was starving, because the food smells from Cabanas were wafting down onto our balcony. I decided to leave the balcony door open for a bit, and see if that would wake Nick up. That did the trick! I think we were on our way to Cabanas for breakfast around 8.

We made it to Cabanas shortly before the breakfast rush, which was a big plus, especially since they now have a sink for handwashing instead of handing out wipes there. I have a feeling that probably backs up a bit during the biggest rush. There were plenty of open faucets when we arrived though.

We hadn’t gone to the main buffet on the Wonder for breakfast at all, so we were blown away by the variety of food available for breakfast. I was particularly excited to see turkey sausage...and of course...hash browns! I also located the POG juice. POG juice is passion fruit, orange, guava, and it’s known as lillikoi juice at Kona Cafe, and something else at Boma. I’m a sucker for it. And, as luck would have it, someone in a group on facebook had posted about it being in Cabanas on the Magic about a week before our trip. It’s in exactly one juice dispenser in the place, near the door to the outside seating, and it’s labeled “Orchard’s Best”. I was a happy girl!

Nick had found a table by the windows so we had a great view. He was pretty confused when he saw the juice I showed up with, and then needed more specific directions than his father to find it himself when he discovered what it was.

We enjoyed the food, and the view. 

While we were eating, we saw Kim and John arrive. We saw them getting food, and then they disappeared. By this point, the place was quite busy and we were nearly done eating. We finished up and then went looking for them, me pausing to take a picture while searching for them in the outdoor seating area. 

We found Kim and John on the other side of the buffet, thoroughly enjoying their breakfast. We made plans to meet up in a bit, and then headed back to our room to get ready to go ashore.

Pretty soon after we left Cabanas, we were ready to go. We headed down to deck 1, and scanned our way off the ship.

Because we had docked at the Naval yard, there were gates up, and we filed down to the entrance to the gate, close to the front of the ship, to board a trolley. We were then shuttled into town, after a reminder to not take any pictures until we were off the Naval property.

I had read a lot online about what an inconvenience it is to dock at the Naval dock. It truly was no big deal, and, in some respects, added to our experience. The shuttles are the same tour trolleys and trains that are used all over town, and our driver acted as a tour guide while we were on board. And we were dropped off right in Mallory Square. And our resident engineer appreciated being on a Naval yard he hadn’t been on. Most of his work is done in Rhode Island, Maine, and San Diego. We also had an ok view of the ship right after we exited Navy property.

So, as I mentioned, we were dropped off RIGHT in Mallory Square. Nick and I had been to Key West on our last cruise, and Kim and John have been here a couple times on bus trips, so we had super lofty goals (NOT) for today. We wanted to check out the aquarium and get some key lime pie. Oh, and Kim wanted another charm for her Pandora bracelet.

As luck would have it, the entrance to the aquarium was a couple hundred feet from where the trolley dropped us off, so it was a no-brainer as to what to do first.

The Key West Aquarium was actually the first ever attraction in Key West. We pretty much hit an aquarium or a zoo on every vacation it seems, with preference going to aquariums. This place looks like a total hole in the wall, but we’ve found that those are often the best aquariums. While this one was certainly nothing awe-inspiring like the Georgia Aquarium (Go there, just do it!), it was impressive in its own way. They’ve packed a lot of exhibits into a small amount of space, and the lady that was leading all of the “tours” and talks while we were there was incredibly knowledgeable. We were there for well over an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half. As aquariums go, it’s relatively inexpensive, and it was well worth it. 

Nick and I exited the aquarium a little head of Kim and John, so he found a place in the shade to hang out, and I enjoyed the sunshine for a few minutes.

Eventually, we headed back into the area where the trolley had dropped us off. There was a stand advertising key lime floats, so we needed to try that out. I got a key lime float (lemonade, lime sherbet, and sprite), Nick got a key lime smoothie, and Kim and John got a big pretzel and a can of Bud, because it was the only place we’d ever seen where alcohol costs less than a bottle of water.

The smoothie, float, and pretzel were all really good. Once they’d been consumed, we poked around the open air “stores” and carts a bit, and then we headed onward for key lime pie!

We didn’t have to go very far. Kermit’s Key Lime Pie has a store very close to Mallory Square. And we had loved Kermit’s last time. I think everyone else got the frozen chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick. I had a regular slice of key lime pie. It was all delicious!

High on sugar, we headed to Duval Street to wander. We ended up poking around a few shops. Nick got himself a hat that made him a “typical American tourist”. And Kim and I both got charms.

Shopping done, we decided we were tired, hot, hungry, and ready to head back to the ship. We did consider hitting one of the many Key West watering holes for food, but in the end, decided to just go back to the ship. After all, our food is paid for there!

We walked back to the area in front of the Customs House, where there was a trolley actively loading to go back to the ship. Kim and John decided to find a restroom and grab a later trolley, but Nick and I boarded. We waited another 5 minutes or so until the trolley filled, and then we were off. This ride was a bit more boring, but still quick, and pretty soon we were stopping at the entrance to have our IDs checked by the gate keepers (seated at a table under a tent...our tax dollars at work!), and then we were on our way back to the ship.